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Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

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Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#2

Post by anshumankmr »

Even with the rebate, how can they hope to recoup the investment? Merch? DVD Sales? Increasing sign ups to Prime? I have a doubt the profits from that will help them earn money to cover up the remaining 300 million or so they have still invested.

And the "internet" really reacted negatively to the trailer as well. (I personally didn't hate the trailer myself but after having watched the original trilogy and the first Hobbit movie, I was feeling a bit underwhelmed cause it didn't do a good job selling the show to me.) So it really remains to be seen whether it will be a hit when it does to go to streaming.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#3

Post by oblio »

anshumankmr wrote: post #2

Even with the rebate, how can they hope to recoup the investment? Merch? DVD Sales? Increasing sign ups to Prime? I have a doubt the profits from that will help them earn money to cover up the remaining 300 million or so they have still invested. And the "internet" really reacted negatively to the trailer as well. (I personally didn't hate the trailer myself but after having watched the original trilogy and the first…

> Even with the rebate, how can they hope to recoup the investment? Merch? DVD Sales? Increasing sign ups to Prime? I have a doubt the profits from that will help them earn money to cover up the remaining 300 million or so they have still invested.

Probably all of the above plus it's a long term move.

Amazon needs to build up a strong catalog and marquee TV shows are long term attractions. As an example, Mad Men, especially because it's set in the 1960s will probably still be watched in the 2060s. Game of Thrones would have been the exact thing but D&D completely tore it apart in the last 2 seasons.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#5

Post by oblio »

addicted wrote: post #4

I’m not so sure the LOTR series is ideal for expansion. It feels like Peter Jackson has already tackled all the really interesting parts of the LOTR world.

Tolkien created a lot of content, an entire fantasy universe. With good storytelling there's a lot more to tell.

If Star Wars, which let's be frank here, is a 2 bit creation compared to Tolkien's works, managed to become a multi billion dollar franchise, then the LotR world should be able to do the same, if it's managed wisely.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#6

Post by Victerius »

addicted wrote: post #4

I’m not so sure the LOTR series is ideal for expansion. It feels like Peter Jackson has already tackled all the really interesting parts of the LOTR world.

> It feels like Peter Jackson has already tackled all the really interesting parts of the LOTR world.

looks sideways to The Silmarillion

looks sideways to The Children of Húrin

looks sideways to The Fall of Gondolin

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#7

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

addicted wrote: post #4

I’m not so sure the LOTR series is ideal for expansion. It feels like Peter Jackson has already tackled all the really interesting parts of the LOTR world.

You can do interesting stories in any setting. LOTR is just a famous brand which means the show is going to be easier to market. I mean if you think about it the LOTR lore is mostly a somewhat christianised version of Norse mythology. It leaves a lot of room especially if you don’t feel too bound to the original texts which are frankly uneven.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#10

Post by cs702 »

anshumankmr wrote: post #2

Even with the rebate, how can they hope to recoup the investment? Merch? DVD Sales? Increasing sign ups to Prime? I have a doubt the profits from that will help them earn money to cover up the remaining 300 million or so they have still invested. And the "internet" really reacted negatively to the trailer as well. (I personally didn't hate the trailer myself but after having watched the original trilogy and the first…

Keep in mind that Amazon needs to get only ~0.2M incremental Amazon Prime subscribers to recoup the investment. The lifetime value (LTV) of a Prime subscriber has been estimated at ~$2,300.[a] You can play around with the figure, but given that every LOTR fan is going to want to watch this series even if it sucks, I wouldn't be surprised is Amazon ends up getting far more than ~0.2M new Prime subscribers because of it.

[a] https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/04/21/whats-a-pr...

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EDIT: Updated the figures to more accurate (based on LTV).

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